The President-elect, Mrs Mary McAleese, said she hoped her election would send a message that "violence is not the way forward". The former Pro Vice-Chancellor of Queen's University believes her election "is a very strong message" to those who have ambit ions to return to violence or who threaten to do so that "those days have now got to be firmly past us and I hope that my election will send that [message] out strongly".
Mrs McAleese said she hoped her victory would be an encouragement "to those people who are firmly and always have been of the conviction that the violence was never the answer here and to those who have more latterly moved in that direction".
In an interview on RTE radio's This Week she praised the loyalist parties, the UDP and PUP, for going a long way towards stripping away the language of sectarianism from their talk. She said she would do her "level best" to chip away at the language of contempt during her seven years. Difference could be argued out in the language of politics and not in the language of contempt, she said.
She also hopes to invite unionist leaders, including Mr David Trimble and the Rev Ian Paisley, to the Aras. "And I hope when the invitations are issued that they will feel comfortable enough to accept."
Mrs McAleese said she wanted "at the earliest opportunity" to invite Queen Elizabeth to lunch. She had found the British monarch "a lovely woman, very hospitable, very warm and very kindly to me" and very very well-informed about Ireland. She declined to discuss her conversation with the queen, saying it was a private conversation and would be "deeply unfair" to open up about it. "But both she and her husband were very, very well aware of the problem that Ireland and Northern Ireland in particular faces. I got from them a very strong sense of affection for this island, for all of this island."
Asked about the controversy surrounding the visit by the former president, Mrs Mary Robinson, to the Vatican, she replied that Mrs Robinson "brought enormous grace and respect to Ireland. I don't think she put a foot wrong in seven years." She added that she was "morally certain that she conducted that meeting with the Pope in a way that reflected dignity on Ireland that she is credited for."
She believed her own election, as a Northerner, had "killed resolutely" any undercurrents that "perhaps Northerners were less Irish in some way, or those who see themselves as Irish were less Irish". She said she accepted the limitations she would be operating under as President. It was important that she articulated the constitutional remit, "particularly given the sensitivities of the unionist community. The constitutional remit is clearly within the 26 counties and I've got to be able to work that line and live within that line and do that with a great degree of sensitivity."
She acknowledged that every nationalist had an ambition for a united Ireland, but "the real ambition we have is for a peaceful Ireland, an Ireland where relationships are no longer based on contempt, but comfortable neighbourly relationships that a sensible community would want to have for its children".
Mrs McAleese said she had a book coming out in a few weeks called Reconciled Being, the subtext of which was to try to cope with a world that was very chaotic. The book was based on lectures she gave earlier in the year.
Mrs McAleese said she was in agreement with the singer Sinead O'Connor about the sentiment that the "solution to all problems is unconditional love". She had spent the last 10 years "struggling to come to terms with the baggage I carry myself . . . and trying to work out how am I going to get rid of it, how do I chip away at it. And constantly I am brought back to this one simple commandment to love."